Palazzo Bricherasio

Palazzo Bricherasio in Turin, Italy, is an urban palace erected in 1636 during the early modern period of Italian history. Over the centuries it acquired a marked presence in the city through repeated remodelling and by serving as a residence for noble families, a center for cultural gatherings, and a setting for events that affected Turin’s public life. Its nineteenth‑century reworking gave the building a broadly neoclassical appearance that tied it to the architectural fashions of that era.

From its construction in the seventeenth century the building stood in the quarter historically known as the Contrada dei Conciai, the neighbourhood of the tanners. Ownership passed among several noble households, and in the mid‑1700s the palace underwent a significant internal reorganisation commissioned by its then‑owners. During the years around the middle of the nineteenth century the Milanese writer Giovanni Berchet lived in the building and died there; his presence is commemorated within the palace.

In 1855 the residence entered the possession of the Cacherano di Bricherasio family, who carried out a further programme of interior and exterior works that established the neoclassical character still visible today. In the final decades of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth the palace became a lively cultural salon under the guidance of Sofia Cacherano di Bricherasio and her family, attracting artists and intellectuals of the period. On 1 July 1899 a group of Turin notables met at the palace to plan the creation of the automobile company FIAT; the founding document was signed in the first‑floor study of the house and Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio is listed among the founding members and served as the society’s vice‑president.

After Emanuele’s sudden death in 1904 his wife Sofia and her mother continued to live at the palace and maintained charitable activity there. Urban works completed in 1938 altered the street front and removed the house’s front garden; a new gate and a modified northern façade were executed a year earlier to face the street created by that intervention. The building survived the heavy bombing of the Second World War. When the last resident countess died in 1950 the palace passed to the Piccola Opera della Divina Provvidenza, a religious charitable institution associated with Don Orione.

In the decades after 1950 the palace accommodated social and educational uses, including a school for embroidery aimed at disadvantaged girls and later classrooms for a technical institute until the mid‑1980s. Following a period of neglect the property was bought and restored in the 1990s, then housed a cultural foundation and exhibition programme for about fifteen years. In 2010 a private bank acquired the building to serve as its representative headquarters; the institution allowed limited public access and from 2011 the ground floor included a café.